Visit Original Unverpackt in Berlin, the first supermarket in Germany without packaging, and Vienna to experience a restaurant that is one of the oldest in the world. Plus: hear from the entrepreneurs trying to change…

From tailor-made coffee to a well-known British supermarket brand, these examples of good retail and service go further than the average store, thanks to bold ambition, piece-by-piece quality and a passion for pleasing…

From futuristic cash-register technology to staff trained as vegetable sommeliers to exhibitors promoting their concoctions, Japan’s Supermarket Trade Show had the highest turnout yet and offers new ideas for an increasi…

Coop is the second largest retailer in Switzerland after Migros, with about 1,500 outlets and 44,000 employees. In 2005, it had a turnover of €8.6bn. It has 20 per cent of the country’s food retail business. As well as…

A design hotel in Davos recently claimed to have the world’s first fully automated check in, seemingly with some pride.

A design hotel in Davos recently claimed to have the world’s first fully automated check in, seemingly with some pride. A quick scan of Google proved that this wasn’t strictly true, there being something of an epidemic in…

An inspiring business can grow from the simple thought of wanting to do something well. Whether that’s starting a pleasant neighbourhood store in Mexico, reinvigorating one of Australia’s heritage brands, taking on the…

Sneezing? Vomiting? Worse? For the general good of mankind, follow these guidelines.

It’s that time of year in London when more people seem to be ill than healthy. The windows of drugstores are festooned with advertisements trying to make flu look cosy. Headlines on the trashier newspapers scream that more…

London’s neighbourhoods are in a race to out-gentrify each other and with pleasant new artisan bakeries come rising living costs, too. Andrew Tuck wonders if the city has finally had its fill.

Are you to blame? Yes, you. Don’t look shifty, you know you have played your part in this. I saw you in the new organic restaurant and then at the pub drinking that fine craft beer. Yes, I am not surprised you are looking…

Yesterday, on the way to Basel, through the airports and in that Swiss town hosting its eponymous art fair, were signs about Great Britain.

Yesterday, on the way to Basel, through the airports and in that Swiss town hosting its eponymous art fair, were signs about Great Britain. Or “Great” Britain. Or GREAT Britain. The signs say: “Countryside is Great. Britain…

I have become fixated with a map. It’s an interactive map of London that shows where the German Luftwaffe dropped bombs on the city between 7 October 1940 and 6 June 1941. It’s a period that includes 57 nights of consecu…

I have become fixated with a map. It’s an interactive map of London that shows where the German Luftwaffe dropped bombs on the city between 7 October 1940 and 6 June 1941. It’s a period that includes 57 nights of consecu…

With global retailers turning the screws and consumers demanding more choice, the Indian government is finally considering removing restrictions on supermarket chains.

With global retailers turning the screws and consumers demanding more choice, the Indian government is finally considering removing restrictions on supermarket chains, potentially paving the way for an overhaul of India’s…

On the breakfast and dinner tables of the seven million people who live in Hong Kong you’ll scarcely find a single product grown locally.

On the breakfast and dinner tables of the seven million people who live in Hong Kong you’ll scarcely find a single product grown locally. There are onions from the US, beef from Australia, kiwis from Chile and eggs plucked…

There are three things that mark one out as British: a proper cup of tea, turning almost any conversation onto the subject of weather, and a sense of fair play that is best exhibited in politely standing in line and waiting…

There are three things that mark one out as British: a belief in the healing properties of a proper cup of tea, an unerring ability to turn almost any conversation onto the subject of weather, and a sense of fair play that…

A silicon valley of social innovations, a land where the lakes are virtually drinkable, a country that has managed to export its unbeatable education system just as the French did with their healthcare and Médecins sans…

A silicon valley of social innovations, a land where the lakes are virtually drinkable, a country that has managed to export its unbeatable education system just as the French did with their healthcare and Médecins sans…

How many Finnish restaurants do you know? Well, obviously there are quite a few of them in Finland and some more in Scandinavia but other than that you really are not likely to come across one to make you fall in love with…

New technology may have changed the film and music industries beyond recognition in recent years, but the gatekeepers of visual art have remained more resistant.

New technology may have changed the film and music industries beyond recognition in recent years, but the gatekeepers of visual art have remained more resistant. With tomorrow’s launch of Europe’s first annual audiovisual…

From Oman to the Netherlands architects are creating markets for the 21st century as urban planners realise that they offer a retail and social model that people like (as long as the rubbish crates arrive at the end of the…

From Oman to the Netherlands architects are creating markets for the 21st century as urban planners realise that they offer a retail and social model that people like (as long as the rubbish crates arrive at the end of the…

Unexpectedly losing a passport or ID card can derail even the best-laid plans and doing so while in a foreign country can make things even trickier, as Monocle’s Gaia Lutz is finding out.

It is easier than ever to find out information about people that you meet (as well as those you don’t) but the news seems to be more filled with horror stories about identity theft rather than tales of people going the…